TEACHING LAW WITHOUT THE ‘PERRY MASON’ CLIPS

In 2008, when defense attorney Jesus Romero began teaching members of Mexico’s legal community about trial procedure, he learned that many of their ideas about trials in the U.S. came from television and movies.

Not so shocking, perhaps, at a time when attorneys on this side of the border regularly warn juries against the “CSI effect” — the false belief that all crimes are solved with high-tech forensic tools and most trials wrap up neatly in about an hour.

More surprising, though, was when a man brought Romero a DVD from a legal course he had taken at a well-known institute in Mexico. The disk contained video clips of “Perry Mason,” “A Few Good Men” and “My Cousin Vinny,” meant to serve as examples of how to deliver opening statements, closing arguments and cross-examine witnesses.

“I thought he was kidding,” said Romero, who has been a deputy public defender for 23 years, recounting the experience recently from his office in Chula Vista.

“I think that opened up the discussion to the fact that they needed to have U.S. or European or Canadian trial lawyers coming in and doing the instruction.”

Since then, Romero, 48, has been working with mostly prosecutors and judges in Latin American countries, instructing them on how to conduct oral trials. He returned in April from a trip to Argentina, where he gave lectures at two universities in Rosario and Santa Fe.

He has already received an open invitation to go back to that country.

“They were hungry to know how the process truly works,” Romero said.

In 2008, Mexico introduced constitutional and legislative changes that were expected to bring major changes to the judicial system.

According to a report by the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute, the reforms comprised four main elements: changes to criminal procedure, emphasis on due-process rights of the accused, modifications to police agencies’ roles in criminal investigations, and tougher procedures for combating organized crime.

Before that, Romero said, Mexico had a written system in which the accused would rarely see the judge and hardly ever see the accuser. The job of the prosecution was to submit the equivalent of a complaint, along with written declarations from witnesses and experts.

The defense attorneys, who are not required to do any independent investigation, would respond in writing, and a judge who had never laid eyes on any witnesses would decide the case and determine the sentence.

“An attorney can submit basically whatever they want,” Romero said, noting that there’s no bar association to regulate lawyers’ conduct. “So that boded very badly for those that were criminally accused.”

Since Romero was first invited to the state of Zacatecas nearly five years ago, he has been asked back to Mexico and other countries again and again, often on his own but most recently as a representative of the county Public Defender’s Office. The institutions that invite him usually pay his way.

He said the task has felt natural to him — speaking in Spanish, his primary language, and instructing a mostly eager audience about presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt.

Public Defender Henry Coker praised Romero’s effort. When lawyers make these kinds of trips, they help strengthen connections between the nations, Mexico in particular, and foster understanding with the greater legal community, Coker said.

But he also acknowledged that change is difficult and often happens slowly.